John D. Ashcroft and Robert Mueller
Petitioners
Gregory G. Garre, Acting Solicitor General Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States launched an investigation to identify those involved in the attacks and to disrupt any follow-on attacks. In the first two months of the investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] questioned more than 1,000 people suspected of having some link specifically to the September 11 attacks or to terrorism generally. The FBI held 762 individuals on various charges. The government deemed a subset of 184 members of that group to be of “high interest to the investigation and detained these individuals in…
